Letter: Vulgar gesture aimed at president shouldn’t result in any monetary gain

Letter to the editor

Updated:
Nov. 17, 2017, 12 a.m.

I was reading an article from CNBC concerning a bicyclist who "flipped off" President Donald Trump’s motorcade and was rewarded $100,000 via GoFundMe for doing so. She is a mother of two children who apparently feels proud of herself for showing the world what she thinks of the president of the United States.

How incredibly shameful for her and for people to stand and applaud her via their pocketbooks for a despicable act. How could they have helped someone in need instead of spewing venom in the form of dollars thinking her First Amendment rights were violated when she was fired for doing so. Maybe she should have read the employee manual as the same policy is written for many companies.

There have always been protesters against any president, so it’s nothing new. But the fact people are willing to literally support her for doing so resonates to our countrymen, and particularly our youth, that it pays to show your disapproval in vile ways, and pays quite well.

I wonder if being fired from her job would have been the only thing that happened to her if she was living in any other country but this one. Here, we can spout the First Amendment, although most could not recite it, and have people throw money at you and pat you on the back for such a foul act. How far we have fallen.

Do we even remember the phrase “united we stand, divided we fall?” Or is it all about the money?